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McAuliffe tried to turn every tough question about his own record into a criticism of Cuccinelli. Asked how he could slam Mitt Romney for not releasing eight years of tax returns but then refuse to release his own a year later, the Democrat said he has gone “above and beyond” what previous candidates for governor did. Then he attacked Cuccinelli on Star Scientific.

NBC’s Chuck Todd, who moderated the showdown for the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce, pressed McAuliffe on how he’d pay for all of his proposed initiatives, including higher teacher pay. The Democrat ducked at least five follow-ups.

“Why can’t you give us a price tag?,” Todd said.

“The key is going to be the Medicaid expansion,” McAuliffe said. “It’s a priority.”

Cuccinelli explained his opposition to the expansion in practical, not ideological, terms. Though he avoided directly rebuking or referring to Cruz by name, he brought up a phone conversation he had with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). He said the Budget Committee chairman told him there’s no way the federal government will follow through on its funding promises, and Virginia will be stuck holding the bag.

Todd asked Cuccinelli to specify which “loopholes” he’d close to pay for $1.3 billion in tax cuts he has proposed.

“There’s literally scores of them,” he said, declining to be more specific.

Just over a week after the deadly shooting at Washington’s Navy Yard, the two candidates also clashed over gun control.

McAuliffe embraced an assault weapons ban that has no realistic chance of passing in Congress or the Commonwealth.

“Whatever rating I may get from the [National Rifle Association], I want to make sure that as governor, every one of our citizens…knows they are safe,” McAuliffe said. “What happened at Navy Yard is a continued pattern … we need to eliminate guns from folks who should not own guns.”

When McAuliffe insisted that he supports the Second Amendment, Cuccinelli noted that he is the only one of six statewide candidates to earn an “F” rating from the NRA. The Republican said the focus should be on mental health instead.

In the second of three planned debates before the Nov. 5 election, Cuccinelli made clear that he intends to spend much of the remainder of the race portraying McAuliffe as a phony.

“I’m the only candidate with a plan to grow jobs other than to say the word ‘jobs’ repeatedly,” he said.

After the debate, he listed several issues on which he worked with Democrats in Virginia government.

“Terry kept saying ‘bipartisanship,’ like saying the word made him bipartisan,” said Cuccinelli.

McAuliffe also made hay about revelations that an underling of Cuccinelli’s in the attorney general’s office offered advice to Consol Energy — which donated more than $100,000 to the candidate’s campaign — during a dispute with Southwest Virginia landowners over gas royalties.

Cuccinelli did not respond specifically to that attack, but he highlighted a major endorsement he received from the Northern Virginia Technology Council’s political arm. And he brought up a Washington Post report that cast doubts on the Democrat’s assertion that he left the troubled GreenTech Automotive startup — which is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and at the center of a Department of Homeland Security inspector general probe — last year.

Cuccinelli, who said a Democratic prosecutor cleared him of wrongdoing in the gifts scandal, pointed to the Democrat’s controversial endeavors during Bill Clinton’s presidency.

“It’s pretty rich to have the guy who rented out the Lincoln Bedroom, sold seats on Air Force One, was an unindicted co-conspirator in a Teamsters election-law money laundering case to be talking about ethics now,” he said.